ITRC December 2021 Seminar on Severe Thunderstorm Hazards -- From Today's Detections to Tomorrow's Forecasts

Seminar #14 Severe Thunderstorm Hazards -- From Today's Detections to Tomorrow's Forecasts: Severe convective storms are, by definition in the United States, those storms that produce winds of at least 50 kts, hail of at least 1" in diameter, and/or a tornado. In the past several decades, the widespread adoption of weather radar (and in particular the technological progression from Doppler radars to dual-polarization radars to, most recently, rapid-scan radars) has significantly improved our ability to detect hazards produced by severe convective storms. These enhanced detection capabilities have led to an improved understanding of these hazards. Many uncertainties and unknowns remain, however. In this seminar, an overview of the current detection capabilities will be provided; these capabilities drive the accuracy of the hazard climatologies that have significant ramifications for designing robust buildings/infrastructure. Pertinent to improved climatologies, the status of the ASCE standard focused on improving our estimates of wind speeds in tornadoes that is currently under development will be addressed as well.   Finally, the development of a next-generation weather warning framework -- "Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats" (FACETS) -- will be discussed.

Speaker: Jeff Snyder, Ph.D., Meteorologist, NOAA/OAR National Severe Storms Laboratory

Host: Farhad Ansari, UIC Professor, Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering